Music / Lyric Idea

A question, a few comments, and an idea or 2 all in one brand spanking new post:

Question: Does anyone use MMA (Musical Midi Accompaniment) and consider themselves proficient in its use?

This was prompted from the BIAB video from Bobby Watson's She's Just A Tempress post.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/indiemusiccollablab/permalink/289433845823043/

Bobby's comment there that ends: "It's up to the next guy to put the polish on what I come up with." gets close to my thinking. I want to use such tools to help me write my words, not to produced a finished recording.

Then I saw the TheoryBoard Live On Kickstarter post. 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/irijule/theoryboard-thy333-music-theory-made-easy

Makes me want to get one to see if it can help me with my lyric writing. I have been thinking for years about a device or program that I have been thinking of as a Nashville Number System keyboard.

In its simplest idea: Turn a dial to set the key for the song. Press 1, get the 1 chord, press 5, get the 5 chord etc.

Slightly more complex: allow for setting strum/arpeggio patterns / rhythms that get played instead of simple sustained chords.

Again, for me all of this is in aid of writing lyrics that come to me, often in small pieces that I feel need some music to help me coax their friends out of my head...

Having super ambitions thoughts this morning... Might love it if I gave a program a chord progression and bpm and had it fill in multiple takes on the "song"... (12 bar blues), (verse - verse - verse), (verse - chorus), (verse - chorus - bridge), in 4/4 time and 3/4 time and others if needed. let me skip around in each and see if any prompts any ideas in my head, then pick one and let it give me several takes closer to the one I chose... (fuzzy thoughts here...)

All of this as I can't seem to find the people to work with me consistently.

In an alternate effort to resolve this problem, I have taken to posting spoken word and poorly sung versions of my ideas and bits of ideas hoping someone will find something and run with it. Most should have a text file with lyrics so far. (Some are missing. I am working through that issue sporadically. If you want to work with one that is missing its words, let me know and I will try and fix promptly.)

https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28creator%3A%22drew+Roberts%22%29&sort=-publicdate

Wind Kill Factor

Wind Kill Factor

I thought I had posted this here before. I wanted to refer to it this morning and could not find it. Luckily I found it in my Facebook posts on April 10th.

Watching winter football, we are always hearing about:

Wind Chill Factor.

Now pandemic and no talk of:

Wind Kill Factor.

If 6 to 10 feet is a safe distance indoors, what is a safe distance downwind of an infected person relative to wind speed when outdoors on a windy day?

Where are the graphs?

Bahamas Real Estate Proposal 01

Bahamas Real Estate Proposal 01

Or, John Christie and COVID 19 made me do it.

I have been thinking about this idea and talking about it from time to time with friends for many years now. But, I can't recall ever documenting it in public before. You can put this down to professional crastination at the highest levels if you like.

I finally wrote this as a reply to a comment by John Christie on Facebook. I thought I would put it here to make it easier to find in the future and to finally document the idea...

John Christie - one idea I have had to reduce what I see as some of the negative impacts of the high tax on transfer of property is to bring time into the equation.

For example: 

Property sells today for the first time in 60 years. Regular rate is paid. Sells again within 2 years, 100% discount on regular rate. Sells within 2 to 50 years use this equation: 

regular rate X (year/50) 

Sells after 50 years: regular rate 

I think I have the maths correct there. (This is not considering your proposal, special adjustment as needed to incorporate that idea. 

Positive benefit. Allows people with the skills to buy, renovate, and flip. Without having to play games or raise the price enough to cover such a high tax twice in a short time. I have felt for years that this would be a good thing for our market.

The Out Of Touch COVID-19

The Out Of Touch

April 12th, 2020

COVID-19 Lockdown Thoughts.

I figure there must be more than zero people in this world right now... Living off grid, in the woods, in the forest, in the bush, in the jungle, on a remote island somewhere...

Who do not even know that all of this is going on...

Do you agree?

If so, what do you think the order of magnitude of the number might be. (A range is OK too...)

Git Modeling

Git Modeling

Rough explanation...

For all scientific modelling receiving public funding, and for all models whose results are used to sway public policy, all data needed for a model run, the code used in the model run, and the output from a model run should be put in a publicly readable git repository. This must be done for *every* run of the model.

We should be able to go back and rerun any model from any point in time with the data from that point in time and confirm that we get the same results that are published for that run in the past.

We should also be able to run data from point in the past A with the model code from point in the past B and compare the results to the results from data from point in the past A with the model code from point in the past C's results...

And other variations.

Virus Thought Experiment

Virus Thought Experiment

An ignorant thinker asks your thoughts...

The Setup:

Two very similar countries.

• Each have a 100 million population.
• Each had the first infected come back from a trip at the same time.
• Each has had the same rate of spread.
• Both are now 10% infected.

Country A tests 100 thousand people.
Country B tests 10 thousand.

What are some possible headlines that, while true would be very misleading?

Are we getting the numbers in the news and from official government sources that we need to think clearly and intelligently about this situation we find ourselves in?

Lock Down Project Proposal

Lock Down Project Proposal

March 21/2020

This proposal if for the consideration of those groups of people put on lock down for whatever reason. The date should give you a clue as to what prompted this.

I will be speaking in some generalities in this post and may be contacting some people / groups privately with more particulars and to determine interest. I am splitting things up this way in case the public / general part might help / inspire a wider group than I contemplate. This is for people who are "artistic" or "crafty" in any way.

Quick Summary

• We can work together online creating music, art, photography, books, etc.
• We can put everything under a Creative Commons BY-SA license.
• We can market these co-created works and give the proceeds to a "good cause" of our choosing.
• We can also allow the "good cause" of our choosing to market / deal in the works we create in this project to raise money that we did not raise.

Objections

If you have any objections to any of the above:

• Change whatever you need to change in the groups you organize so that your group has a good time and gets something worthwhile done.
• Keep you objections off of this page. You have a better solution one point above.
• If you are a part of a group I reach out to later, we can work things out in private.

Notes and Rambles

• Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
• Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Legal Code
• My initial thought is to work with some friends to make music.
• The "digital realm" might be the most interesting.

Other Possibilities

Book of short stories / essays

Photo book

Photo Calendars

Art Works

Clothing Designs

Computer Programs / Apps

T-Shirt Designs

I may add to this later. I would be interested in hearing anything that comes of this.

Money Is Fungible

[Posted on FB September 07/2019.]

Money Is Fungible

A post Dorian thought for the powers that be.

(It may sound crazy but consider it for a second.)

Money is fungible.

If some people, local or international, want to direct their giving towards a particular person, group, community, island, etc., let them and make it as easy as possible for them.

Money is fungible.

If those people give too much to one settlement and nothing to another you can balance things out with the general giving and funds that you control.

Money is fungible.

If A gets all the outside money, you can cut down (or eliminate) what you had planned to give to A and give more to B.

Money is fungible.

Thanks you for your service in these trying times.

Traffic Mapping Fun

Traffic Mapping Fun

I am working on a little, crude, traffic mapping system for Nassau. (Anywhere really, but I am doing it for Nassau.)

It started out this way...

I developed a little android app that used its location, speed, time, etc. to build a fake URL that contains this information and then requests this fake URL from a web server that I have access to the logs for. Since this is a fake URL, it never gets back what it asks for but this is intended. The information I need is now in the logs.

I can then scan web server logs and look for lines that the app created. I have a script that puts these lines into a format that I want to parse for the web map.

I am making the web map using openlayers and openstreetmap stuff. Oh, javascript, jquery, and bootstrap too.

Not that I really know how to use this stuff fit a kick. My ignorance is vast.

So. This is the html page: wblogger.html

<pre  style="font-family:arial;font-size:12px;border:1px dashed #CCCCCC;width:99%;height:auto;overflow:auto;background:#f0f0f0;;background-image:URL(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPZbQrgON51ozgHamH6U62pP4MEB2zPxKNd_-VVsztA2Gt3v37erG_1WWh_UxDN3e5lH6H19E88ji2CRQJfh4sB6yfmvvWHVko2N3z-oHlnqXq9-78TAGFJhiiLac_0dJSsPc6rQj8_Ceg/s320/codebg.gif);padding:0px;color:#000000;text-align:left;line-height:20px;"><code style="color:#000000;word-wrap:normal;"> &lt;!doctype html&gt;  
 &lt;html lang="en"&gt;  
  &lt;head&gt;  
   &lt;link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.rawgit.com/openlayers/openlayers.github.io/master/en/v5.3.0/css/ol.css" type="text/css"&gt;  
   &lt;style&gt;  
    .map {  
     height: 400px;  
     width: 100%;  
    }  
    #map {  
      position: relative;  
    }  
    #popup {  
      padding-bottom: 45px;  
    }  
   &lt;/style&gt;  
   &lt;script src="https://cdn.rawgit.com/openlayers/openlayers.github.io/master/en/v5.3.0/build/ol.js"&gt;&lt;/script&gt;  
   &lt;script type = "text/javascript" src = "https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.3/jquery.min.js"&gt;&lt;/script&gt;  
   &lt;script src="//maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.4/js/bootstrap.min.js"&gt;&lt;/script&gt;  
   &lt;link href="//maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.4/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet"&gt;  
   &lt;script type="text/javascript"&gt;  
        //  
      $( document ).ready(function() {  
        console.log( "ready!" );  
      });  
   &lt;/script&gt;  
   &lt;title&gt;OpenLayers example&lt;/title&gt;  
  &lt;/head&gt;  
  &lt;body&gt;  
   &lt;h2&gt;zotzBrothers Traffic Map&lt;/h2&gt;  
   &lt;div id="map" style="width:1200px;height:800px" class="map"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;  
        &lt;div id="popup"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;  
   &lt;script type="text/javascript"&gt;  
   window.carLocs = new Array();  
        $.get('systemlines.txt', function(data){  
       window.carLocs = data.split('\n');  
       //console.log(window.carLocs);  
        mymap();  
   });  
 function mymap(){  
   var vectorSource = new ol.source.Vector({  
    //create empty vector  
   });  
   //create the style  
   var iconStyle = new ol.style.Style({  
    image: new ol.style.Icon(/** @type {olx.style.IconOptions} */ ({  
     anchor: [0, 0],  
     anchorXUnits: 'fraction',  
     anchorYUnits: 'pixels',  
     opacity: 0.75,  
      color: [113, 140, 0],  
     src: 'ol_icon.png'  
    }))  
   });  
   //create a bunch of icons and add to source vector  
   for (var i=0;i&lt;(carLocs.length-1);i++){  
      var myrecs = carLocs[i].split('/');  
           //console.log("lat ",mypos[0]," long ",mypos[1], " speed ", mypos[2]);  
           //console.log(myrecs[0],myrecs[1],myrecs[2],myrecs[3],myrecs[4],myrecs[5])  
       var mypos = myrecs[4].split('||');  
           //console.log("lat ",mypos[0]," long ",mypos[1], " speed ", mypos[2]);  
           //console.log(mypos);  
       var myspeed = myrecs[5].split(':');   
           //console.log("Only speed: ",myspeed[1]);  
       var dauser = myrecs[2];  
      //console.log("user ",dauser);       
      var dalat = Number(mypos[1]);  
      //console.log("lat ",dalat);  
      var dalong = Number(mypos[0]);  
      //console.log("long ",dalong);  
      //console.log("speed bit: ", myrecs[5]);  
      var daspeed = Math.round( Number(myspeed[1]) * 10 ) / 10;  
      //console.log("speed ",daspeed);  
      //console.log(dalat,dalong,daspeed);  
     var iconFeature = new ol.Feature({  
      geometry: new   
       ol.geom.Point(ol.proj.transform([dalat, dalong], 'EPSG:4326',  'EPSG:3857')),  
     name: 'daInstance_' + i + " Speed: " + daspeed,  
     speed: daspeed  
     });  
      if (daspeed &lt; 10) {  
           iconFeature.setStyle(new ol.style.Style({  
                image: new ol.style.Icon(/** @type {olx.style.IconOptions} */ ({  
                     anchor: [0, 0],  
                         anchorXUnits: 'fraction',  
                         anchorYUnits: 'pixels',  
                         opacity: 0.75,  
                          color: '#DC143C',  
                         src: 'ol_icon.png',  
                          scale: 0.5  
                     }))  
                }));  
      }  
     vectorSource.addFeature(iconFeature);  
   }  
   //add the feature vector to the layer vector, and apply a style to whole layer  
   var vectorLayer = new ol.layer.Vector({  
    source: vectorSource,  
    style: iconStyle  
   });  
   var map = new ol.Map({  
    layers: [new ol.layer.Tile({ source: new ol.source.OSM() }), vectorLayer],  
    target: document.getElementById('map'),  
    view: new ol.View({  
     center: ol.proj.fromLonLat([-77.353011, 25.0785398]),  
     zoom: 12  
    })  
   });  
   var element = document.getElementById('popup');  
   var popup = new ol.Overlay({  
      element: element,  
      positioning: 'bottom-center',  
      stopEvent: false  
   });  
   map.addOverlay(popup);  
 // display popup on click  
 map.on('click', function(evt) {  
  var feature = map.forEachFeatureAtPixel(evt.pixel,  
   function(feature, layer) {  
    return feature;  
   });  
  if (feature) {  
   var geometry = feature.getGeometry();  
   var coord = geometry.getCoordinates();  
   popup.setPosition(coord);  
   $(element).popover({  
    'placement': 'top',  
    'html': true  
   });  
   $(element).data("bs.popover").options.content= feature.get('name');  
   $(element).popover("show");  
   //document.getElementsByClassName("popover-content")[0].innerHTML = feature.get('name');   
   //$(element).popover('show');  
  } else {  
   $(element).popover('destroy');  
  }  
 });  
 // change mouse cursor when over marker  
 map.on('pointermove', function(e) {  
  if (e.dragging) {  
   $(element).popover('destroy');  
   return;  
  }  
  var pixel = map.getEventPixel(e.originalEvent);  
  var hit = map.hasFeatureAtPixel(pixel);  
  map.getTarget().style.cursor = hit ? 'pointer' : '';  
 });  
 }  
   &lt;/script&gt;  
  &lt;/body&gt;  
 &lt;/html&gt;  
</code></pre>

And this is the datafile: systemlines.txt

/zbloc/U999999/Speed_OK:13.93651/25.07857||-77.34838||-20.33905/Current_Speed:13.93651
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_OK:21.58705/25.07843||-77.35162||-27.1488/Current_Speed:21.58705
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_OK:29.55077/25.07976||-77.36289||-31.21094/Current_Speed:29.55077
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_OK:30.40083/25.07899||-77.35873||-31.58047/Current_Speed:30.40083
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_OK:31.63118/25.07833||-77.35521||-21.68082/Current_Speed:31.63118
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_OK:9.19407/25.0782||-77.34737||-31.22083/Current_Speed:9.19407
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:0/25.07853||-77.35114||-42.20892/Current_Speed:0
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:11.94558/25.07862||-77.34995||-18.98419/Current_Speed:11.94558
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:13.93651/25.07857||-77.34838||-20.33905/Current_Speed:13.93651
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:14.11547/25.07856||-77.34897||-27.05417/Current_Speed:14.11547
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:1.45405/25.07847||-77.35113||-20.47964/Current_Speed:1.45405
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:1.54353/25.07853||-77.35106||-30.974/Current_Speed:1.54353
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:1.54353/25.07853||-77.35106||-30.974/Current_Speed:1.54353
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:21.58705/25.07843||-77.35162||-27.1488/Current_Speed:21.58705
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:24.11486/25.07878||-77.35756||-29.90512/Current_Speed:24.11486
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:25.61365/25.07832||-77.35262||-30.26508/Current_Speed:25.61365
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:27.11244/25.07859||-77.35653||-33.70917/Current_Speed:27.11244
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:29.55077/25.07976||-77.36289||-31.21094/Current_Speed:29.55077
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:29.66262/25.07818||-77.35385||-27.67673/Current_Speed:29.66262
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:30.40083/25.07899||-77.35873||-31.58047/Current_Speed:30.40083
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:31.63118/25.07833||-77.35521||-21.68082/Current_Speed:31.63118
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:32.4365/25.07932||-77.36005||-27.33765/Current_Speed:32.4365
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:33.37604/25.07954||-77.3615||-28.73572/Current_Speed:33.37604
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:3.3555/25.07801||-77.34728||-24.91364/Current_Speed:3.3555
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:3.48972/25.07852||-77.34784||-7.2254/Current_Speed:3.48972
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:4.38452/25.07796||-77.34716||-26.48145/Current_Speed:4.38452
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:5.54776/25.07856||-77.35069||-15.47156/Current_Speed:5.54776
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:8.67956/25.07847||-77.3476||-11.89642/Current_Speed:8.67956
/zbloc/U999999/Speed_Slow:9.19407/25.0782||-77.34737||-31.22083/Current_Speed:9.19407

So this was my first take. What this shows...

1. The ability to place "cars" on the map based on external data in a file.
2. The ability to change the colour of the cars based on the car's speed.
3. The ability to change the size of the cars. (Again based on the car's speed but this in not the final purpose for setting the size.)
4. The ability to popup information about the car by clicking on its icon.

Desired improvements...

1. Automatically put app data into a database. (mysql/mariadb with geo features.)
2. Ability of web page to pull in data from the database instead of a text file.
3. Ability to change the size of the car icons  in an intelligent way so that they scale with the size of the roads they are on as the map zoom changes.
4. Fix the problem with the car icons being "offset" from the roads. Unless this turns out to be an issue with the data being inaccurate...
5. (I don't think the problem mentioned in 4 can be the whole issue) Fix the fact that the car icon's position with respect to the map roads changes on zooming.
6. It would be nice if the choice  of when to consider a car slow could be based on the speed limit of the road but that is not 100% necessary at this point.
7. It would be nice to change the orientation of the car to match the road so that it does not sit sideways on north/south roads. (Perhaps it would be better to represent the car as a point if this is not possible?)
8. perhaps add a few more colour coded speed "bands" rather than just red for slow and green for normal.

I have made progress on some of the above and will post improvements when I can.

I am looking for people who would like to discuss this and people who have a bit more expertise with openlayers/javascript/etc.

Augmented Reality Staging For Home Sales

Augmented Reality Staging For Home Sales

Consider AR staging for home sales... New home sales, renovations, flips...

Potential buyers show up. Put on the AR glasses/headgear and are led into the property.

They "see"' the place fully furnished and decorated. If they like it great. If not, they can discuss what they liked and did not like with the realtor/seller and they can be led into the property another time but this time see a completely different set up, furniture more to their liking, a colour scheme they prefer, different art work, a completely different "theme." Repeat as needed.

No need to rent furniture, art, and the rest and do an actual, physical staging of the property.

This could be tested against a Virtual Reality concept doing basically the same thing to see which performs better in which situations.

What If We Did Laws Like This

What If We Did Laws Like This?

----------------------------------------
Section 1.
Title/Name Of Law
----------------------------------------
Section 2.
Traditional Text of Law as we do now.
----------------------------------------
Section 3.
Spirit of this law is. ...
----------------------------------------
Section 4.
Intended to apply like this. Intended to be used for this.
----------------------------------------
Section 5.
Never to apply to this. Never to be used for this.
----------------------------------------
Section 6.
Intended consequences. Intended Results.
----------------------------------------
Section 7.
Guaranteed not to happen. Guaranteed not to result in this.
----------------------------------------
Section 8.
If sections 5 and  7 are violated, this entire law is null and void.
----------------------------------------

Fix For The Semi Recent Trump VS Acosta Drama

Fix For The Semi Recent Trump VS Acosta Drama

I was immediately struck by their sound system.

Technical fix:

Multiple wireless mics. (Say 3 or 4)
Each on a different channel on a mixer.
When your time is up, your channel is brought down.
Next person calls on gets a different mic and that channel is brought up.
If you know the order people will be called on, you can hand out the mics ahead of time and run things a bit smoother.

So, not need for a confrontation with someone who does not promptly give up the mic.

Now, it is a whole different matter as to whether such a fix would be in the best interests of the country or not.

Crazy Political Ideas

Crazy Political Ideas

Bipartisan Influenced Term Limits

This idea came to me as a way to encourage bipartisan legislation. Basically, we set very short term limits for parliament/congress/the house/the senate. Then, we allow the term to be extended based on some ratio of bipartisan legislation passed and how *strong* a bipartisan effort it was.

New Lonely People

New Lonely People

Never before in the existence of the universe has a
Lonely heart found itself in such a state, seeking another
Person to touch, to connect, to sync with.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
Sync, sync, sync.
Breathe.
Sink...
No comment.

Sports And Music In The Bahamas

Sports And Music In The Bahamas

Let's take sports and music as they exist in the Bahamas post high school. (This is from occasional personal observation and not from any systematic study.)

We have musicians who play in front of the public, or who would like to, complaining on a fairly regular basis that the financial rewards are too small and that they are not respected enough and etc. (I am not in any way saying that these points are completely invalid.)

We have athletes who also play in front of the public. Basketball, baseball, soccer, American football, cricket, and possibly others. As far as I know, none of these local athletes gets paid.

(We do have local athletes who go abroad and play professional sports to be sure.)

My guess is that local musicians earn more on average by "making" music than local athletes doing their thing. I don't recall local athletes complaining in the same way the musicians do. They seem to be playing for the love of the sport. I am sure some local musicians also play for the love of the music.

What is your take on this "situation" in your country?

Can you make the case for charity?

I created the choices in the list below but allowed my computer to randomize them for me. If you feel that you can make a decent case for either of them, please do so in a comment below.

• The Libertarian case for charity.
• The Secular case for charity.
• The Public case for charity.
• The Religious case for charity.
• The Corporate case for charity.
• The Progressive case for charity.
• The Private case for charity.
• The Group case for charity.
• The Individual case for charity.
• The Government case for charity.
• The Liberal case for charity.
• The Conservative case for charity.

If you feel I should add some other options, please let me know.

Bahamian Creative Scene

Who makes more money in this country? (The Bahamas) And that is from work done while living in this country or work done in this country.

1. Musicians
2. Comedians
3. Actors
4. Athletes
5. Artists (Painters)
6. Artists (Sculptors)
7. Jugglers
8. Acrobats
9. Dancers
10. Visual Artists
11. Poets


Any others we want to add?

I put athletes on the list as a comparison.

Thoughts On A Recall System For Bahamian Ministers Of Parliament

Thoughts On A Recall System For Bahamian Ministers Of Parliament

This sounds like a good thing on the surface but it could cause many complications.

You could have people trying to thwart the will of the people over and over again by trying recall after recall. Excessive recall attempts could be used to gum up the works and make the proper operation of government difficult.

I propose one simple thought that could eliminate a lot of these problems in one go.

If the MP is a backbencher, the only people able to initiate a recall are their constituents. If a large enough percentage of their constituents put their signature to a recall effort, a recall election is held in their constituency. The only people allowed to run in this recall election are people who are members of the same party as the MP being recalled and who were members of that party as of the last General Election and who are approved to run by the members of that party in that constituency. This will eliminate any effort to change the balance of power via a recall effort.

If the MP is a cabinet member, if a large enough percentage of registered voters in the country put their signature to a removal effort, a demotion / recall election is held in their constituency. The only people allowed to run in this demotion / recall election are people who are members of the same party as the MP being recalled and who were members of that party as of the last General Election and who are approved to run by the members of that party in that constituency. The result of this may be that the MP is not demoted or recalled, or the MP may be demoted but not recalled in which case the MP becomes a backbencher for the duration, or the MP may be recalled in which the new MP becomes a backbencher or cabinet member at the decision of the Prime Minister. This will eliminate any effort to change the balance of power via a recall effort. However, as this MP cabinet member was having a National Impact, the nation as a whole gets a say in forcing the demotion / recall election but no say in what the constituents decide for their representative.

In a nutshell, the recall / demotion elections will allow for the people to deal with a non-performing MP while not changing the balance of power in the House.

A Crazy Social Solution To A Social Dilema

A Crazy Social Solution To A Social Dilema

So I came upon this on Slashdot this morning. (I know, I know, but somehow I still do.)

The Moral Dilemma of Driverless Cars: Save The Driver or Save The Crowd?

Quote:

"Most people want to live in in a world where cars will minimize casualties," says Iyad Rahwan. "But everybody wants their own car to protect them at all costs." The result is what the researchers call a "social dilemma,"

How about a button where every time you get in your car, you have to choose what you want the car to do?

1. Minimize casualties.

2. Protect me at all costs.

You can also change your mind at any point during the ride/trip.

These decisions are then posted to all of your social media.

Multiple people in the car? Majority rules.

Crazy, I know. How do you think it would play out. How would it be gamed and how could those games be counteracted?

Money Money

Money Money

So, I have been meaning to do this for a while now.

This is the result of some quick research at this point, not extensive research. I invite comments to help this make more sense. I invite suggestions as to how to add to this information to make it better.

Here we go:

Highest-Paid Bosses
The CEOs of America's 500 biggest companies got a collective pay raise of 16% last year earning total compensation of $5.2 billion. That's an average $10.5 million

See:

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/eggh45jef/highest-paid-bosses/

Very Top:

John Hammergren of McKesson $131.2 Million Total Compensation

The World's Highest-Paid Athletes (Top 100) Fudged a bit. Please check figures. (Millions)

Avg
Pay Salary/Winnings Endorsements
32.2 24.0 8.2

See:

http://www.forbes.com/athletes/list/#tab:overall

Very Top:

Floyd Mayweather (Millions)
Pay Salary/Winnings Endorsements
300 285 15

World's Top Paid Actors

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_paid_film_actors

Very Top: Millions Millions
Actor Year Salary Total Income
Keanu Reeves 2003 30 156

I could not find a similar table for actresses.

World’s Top 20 Highest Paid Political Leaders

See:
http://www.richestlifestyle.com/highest-paid-political-leaders-in-the-world/

Very Top:                                    Millions
Leader Country                                   Salary
Lee Hsien Loong    Prime Minister of Singapore    1.7


Any ideas on other professions? Links if you know them please.